Rail sabotage

Methods

Track obstruction

Damage to infrastructure

• 1861: East Tennessee bridge burnings – Union sympathizers destroyed nine railroad bridges in East Tennessee, on the orders of President Lincoln. The bridges were quickly rebuilt.
• 1864: John Yates Beall, a Confederate Navy officer, was discovered plotting to derail a Union passenger train, and executed the following year.
• 1915: Vanceboro bridge bombing – the Saint Croix–Vanceboro Railway Bridge was bombed by German saboteurs, although the bridge was not destroyed and was quickly rebuilt.
• 1942: Thamshavn Line sabotage – the transformer station for Norway's Thamshavn Line was blown up by Norwegian saboteurs during the German occupation.
• 1951: Huntly rail bridge bombing – a rail bridge in Huntly, New Zealand, was blown up in order to disrupt coal supplies to a nearby power station, aiding the cause of striking workers.
• 1995: Palo Verde derailment – a train in Palo Verde, Arizona, was derailed by saboteurs shifting the rails out of position, causing one fatality. The case remains unsolved.
• 2002: Jaunpur train crash – a rail was broken and caused a train to derail, killing twelve people. An Islamic extremist organization was blamed.
• 2002: Rafiganj train wreck – a train derailed on a bridge over a river in Bihar, India, killing at least 130 people. A Maoist terrorist organization was blamed.

  Damage to trains

Motivations

Terrorism

Military

Mischief

In popular culture

• The Wrecker
• The Wrecker by Clive Cussler deals with